Securing the legacy of Elabon and Heideran in a new era

Fiction Portal Intergalactic Summit
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The following is a transcript of a speech delivered by Sevrailan Tian Valirieux at the Solitude Social Democrats society dinner, 11 March YC 125.

Good evening fellow members of the society,

Over a century ago two great men in an age of the contempt borne of rebellion and war looked out across the vast gulf of stars and saw that there could be a new path of peace that would ameliorate the excesses of violence and destruction of that time.

Those great men were President Aidonis Elabon and Emperor Heideran the Seventh. Together their shared vision of peace would result in the formation of CONCORD and a century of security and stability that has contributed greatly to human betterment and material prosperity.

However the rules based order of CONCORD founded by these great men of Gallentia and Amarr that has been a shining beacon of progress and order in the darkness of the cluster has come under threat. That threat to the interstellar order of CONCORD comes from no other place than the Caldari State and the Minmatar Republic.

It was the revanchist beliefs of the Caldari and Minmatar that lead to invasion of the Federation and the Empire. It was the Caldari and the Minmatar that struck the first blows against interstellar peace and security under the leadership of their despots and tyrants such as Tibus Heth and Maleatu Shakor.

For the past two decades it has been Caldari and Minmatar belligerence and their propensities towards warfare and violence against their peaceful neighbours that has lead to continued potential flashpoints between Federation and Empire as we have sought to abide by our military commitments given in mutual defence treaties to our respective partners.

However the Federation and the Empire have never sought to be enemies, quite to the contrary as President Elabon and Heideran showed there is great potential to unleash the capacity of human progress when Gallente and Amarr have had the opportunity to work together.

With the annulment of mutual defence treaties with the State and Republic there will exist ever greater opportunities to pursue mutually beneficial partnerships between the Federation and Empire to the benefit of both our great nations.

It is no secret that a major reason behind the economic successes of the Caldari State for the past century has been their unrestricted access to export their products into the vast Imperial markets. With what I see as the inevitable lifting of Federal sanctions against the Empire the opportunity for Federal companies to export into the Empire under a more competitive regulatory scheme will present itself as a chance for increasing Federal export market share with immense potential profits.

A new economic order with the Empire would allow Federal companies to access the vast reserves of capital available to the Empire such as with the banks of House Tash-Murkon and we should see it as to the benefit of the Federation to allow for investment in our markets. There is perhaps no better guarantor of peace than mutual trade and shared economic interests in order to banish the spectre of war between Gallente and Amarr.

For we must remember that all that the peoples of the Federation and Empire have desired is peace and accord with our neighbours in order to realise the potential promises of our ideals. Yet our desires for peace have continued to be challenged by our more violent and warmongering rebel nations such as the Caldari State and Minmatar Republic who continue to embark upon campaigns of bloodshed and hatred against us.

With a new astropolitical understanding being reached between the Federation and Empire we can see clearly that Gallente and Amarr have never needed to be enemies except when we have both been dragged towards confrontation by either the State or Republic.

An understanding between the Federation and Empire brings with it the ability to focus on our real enemies and not each other. To finally finish the wars the State and Republic started against us and to achieve a lasting interstellar peace.

May President Aguard and Empress Catiz be worthy guardians of the peace and the legacy of Elabon and Heideran.

Long live the Federation and long live the Empire.

Thank you.

  • Sevrailan Tian Valirieux 11.3.125
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There is the issue of slavery Speaker Valirieux. That is not a contention to lightly set aside. How would you propose to address it?

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Aidonis Elabon has been a great man for the entire humanity of the whole cluster of New Eden. He didnā€™t see any difference about which ethnic group, race, people deserved peace and prosperity. Thatā€™s why he wouldnā€™t be extremely agree about your discourse as while you exalt a possible new cooperation between Amarr and Gallente people, you condemn and consider the Caldari-Minmatar agree a threat for the cluster stability.

Instead ā€œleaving an ally for a new oneā€, in crisis moments like this, we should find a way to renew this legacy of two important people and cease any kind of war (directly declared or not) once for all. This being dreams a future where the CONCORD EMWPA will be cancelled as all the hostilities between the Big 4 will be finally ceased as Elabon and Heideran would want.

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And to that Sevrailan, I pray you bear witness to the brutalities of slavery with every passing deal made between you and your new ā€œfriends.ā€

May the peace you find be soiled by the stench of rotted corpses, as that is what your vile words imply.

Fool yourself no longer. You are no patron of freedom, not even a patron of peace. You have declared to the whole of New Eden with this transcript, that you are in fact a gimp to Amarrā€™s pitiless and hateful god.

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You are a foolish child, whose failure to grasp even basic concepts of how things actually work has been demonstrated multiple times in just the last seven days.

I only hope you never have to experience, firsthand, the entirely predictable results of the position you now espouse.

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Given our values in the Federation it comes as no surprise that we would find slavery objectionable. However our values are our own and we should not seek to impose our values on those societies different to our own and remain tolerant of their beliefs.

After all we should not seek to be the cultural imperialists so many accuse as of where the Amarr are concerned.

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Just where the Intaki and Caldari are concerned.

Kinda telling that your criteria appears to be ā€˜do they have enough guns to scare me?ā€™

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I would say my criteria are: ā€œAre they civilized and responsible enough to respect?ā€

In regards to the Amarr my answer is yes.

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I wonder then what your opinion of the Sansha might be, considering that by some definitions they are ā€œcivilizedā€ and ā€œresponsibleā€.

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So in your opinion, slavery is civilized. Systemic, legal rape is civilized. Dropping suborbital artillery bombardments on victims of chemical weapons attacks is civilized. Launching anti-matter munitions at fishing villages is civilized.

Is that true, or are you simply once again woefully unaware of WTF it is youā€™re talking about?

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I know what isnā€™t civilized ā€“ invading the lands of your allies when they least expect it, kill their people, and then make deals with their enemies behind their backs.

Because that is how the Matari treat their friends, and since thatā€™s the case whatever horrors such people face is their own concern because expending Gallentean blood to liberate those in slavery is a wasted effort when they have already shown they will spit in the face and stab in the back those who give them a helping hand.

Go ask the Caldari to liberate your people.

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Maybe, but you didnā€™t make your criteria ā€˜are their enemies uncivilizedā€™, you made it about whether the Amarr are civilized.

So answer the question. Do you consider those things to be civilized?

And letā€™s just address this one, here:

No deals have been made behind anyoneā€™s back. The negotiations have been made out in the open. You were aware of the negotiations before they even beganā€”because we all were, it was public knowledge. Nothing has been hidden. There has been no ā€˜behind your backā€™.

I get that you want to feel butthurt thatā€”after both expansionist empires have been shown to be, in effect, bribing the arbitrators in terms of cosmopolitical relationsā€”the people you see as a client-state have demonstrated that theyā€™re not your sockpuppets. Thatā€™s fine. Youā€™re entitled to feel that way, especially with your nonsense about ā€˜free to choose whatever path they like as long as itā€™s the one we tell them toā€™ revealing that you just want your nation to be another bunch of slave-masters. But if youā€™re going to accuse people of doing something ā€œbehind [the Federationā€™s] backsā€, maybe you should, you know, at least have a single, solitary leg to stand on.

Especially when the Federation is making massive military moves on the Intakiā€”and actually doing it behind their backs, with the Assembly not even informed ahead of time that the system was being withdrawn from the Warzone, and no advance notice of FedNavy movements in the system, despite actual treaties with the Intaki making that a legal requirement.

And who shot first, again? Did our dreads jump into Colelie in advance of a Gallente citizen shooting the Ray of Matar?

Seems to me you like to whine about how the Matari treat their friends, but youā€™re more than willing to justify starvation blockades, murder, violations of Federal treaties, and forced subjugation of supposedly ā€˜freeā€™ people.

So, are the Amarr really ā€˜civilizedā€™ā€¦ or are they just what you wish you could be, in your authoritarian masturbations?

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Arrendis, I am genuinely surprised that I find myself agreeing with aā€¦ staunch federalist but he is entirely correct in his assertions. The minmatar have been the most truculent and ungrateful of allies and it was only a matter of time before the gallente looked elsewhere.

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That presumes Gallente principles are transactional. That theyā€™re not actually concerned about humanitarian interests, not actually concerned about ā€˜freedomā€™ and opposing injustice and oppression the way they claim to be.

So the problem he runs into is: if his arguments are to have weight, then he has to actively make the claim that the Gallente Federation has been lying to its own people, and the rest of the cluster, about who they are, who they want to be, and what their goals are, since the days when they starved your homeworld into submission.

And if thatā€™s trueā€¦ then we repaid some material aid with two centuries of forcing the State to defend a southern border the Gallente could otherwise not threaten in the slightest, with all of the expense and additional logistics involved in that. And even that ignores the fact that, if not for the Rebellion, rather than the 10 regions of Federal + Republic space having to stand against 12 regions of the Empire and the State, they would have spent the last 2 centuries trying to protect 6 regions of space against the combined military and economic power of 16 regions of hostile space.

If they want to be transactional about this, not principled, then they got more than their moneyā€™s worth, over the years.

And this deal? This deal doesnā€™t in any way provide them with allies. It says only that the Federation and Empire wonā€™t intervene in one anotherā€™s ā€˜sphere of influenceā€™. It still leaves the Federation behind the Empire in terms of strength, and even if you ignore the military issues, thereā€™s the questions of infiltration and soft power.

The Federationā€™s a fairly open society. There are already congregations of the Amarr Rite (as well as Sani Sabik groups, but thatā€™s not the same as Blood Raiders) within the Federation. That means there are groups of people within the Federation who believe, as a matter of faith, that their ultimate loyalty is to God, and Godā€™s temporal representativeā€¦ the Amarr Empressā€¦ and that the very nature of Federal society and Federal law prevents the Federation from taking steps to isolate these groups or to prevent them from spreading this ideology.

Whatā€™s the math on the other side?

Well, the Federationā€™s looking eagerly toward ā€˜improved trade opportunitiesā€™ that the Amarr are talking aboutā€¦ but a lot of the Federationā€™s exports, cluster-wide, are cultural. Music, holos, books, lifestyle products. And anything that contravenes the orthodoxy of the Empireā€¦ well, thatā€™s not gonna be allowed within the Empire. Capsuleers can get it, of course, but weā€™re a miniscule trickle of economic activity compared to the actual baseliner economies of the cluster.

So the Federation ensures that the Empire focuses its military efforts in a direction that will let Amarr consolidate naval strength, while being able to turn Imperial infiltration and social subversion skills to an open society just ripe for undermining. And in exchange for sacrificing the principles it claims to have lived by for longer than the State has existed, this newly transactional Federation getsā€¦ absolutely no improved ability to project soft power into the Empire, and widespread dissent and unease at home in the face of ā€œa complete abdication of our responsibilities to interstellar civilization beyond our bordersā€.

Either the Federation is a principled nation-state, acting in accordance with its principles, or it is not. But if it is not, it is giving up a massive amount in the balance of this arrangement, all because authoritarians like Aguard and sycophants like Valirieux got their fefes in a twist over the two smaller powers approaching an arrangement thatā€”as long as the Federation wasnā€™t actively planning a full-scale invasion of the State beyond the warzonesā€”doesnā€™t actually impair Federal power in the slightest.

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Iā€™m pretty sure I read an article that revealed that the biggest market for Gallente high end lingerie is not actually the Federation, but the Empire, due to the differences in social values. Holders apparently spend a lot on such things.

Quafe as well.

The idea though that the Federation compromised their long term strategic interests and threw the Republic under the proverbial bus, in order to sell more bras and fizzy drinks is kinda hard to believe.

I mean, Iā€™d believe it if it was Gutter Press saying it, but not anyone else.

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Is this really how things work?

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I know my own feelings and theyā€™re definitely not in a twist.

That said, the Minmatar are free to fight their own battles and the Republic has made it clear they would rather throw their lot in with the State.

As such as far as Iā€™m concerned the issue of Matari enslavement is a problem for the Republic and the State to manage ā€“ not the Federation.

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Iā€™m sure Senator Ramnevā€™s strategy team fully agrees with you, given the ethnicity of roughly a third of the electorate.

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Then I will applaud the good Senator Ramnev if she is able to motivate enough people to vote for her at the next elections.

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It may serve you Speaker to access a database on the subject.
A stance against slavery was an inherent full-blooded Gallente concern before it became the Minmater passion or my own.

You are right in that there is a common cause in this union. Both the Amarr and Gallente subscribe to a subliminal belief in the divine right to rule. It irritates me that Arrendis has greater political freedom to oppose it than I do.